Ley de Lemas

Ley de Lemas is a variant of open list proportional representation, which is, or has been, used in elections in Argentina, Uruguay, and Honduras, and works as follows: Each political party (or coalition, if permitted) is formally termed a lema. Each lema might have several sublemas (candidates or lists of candidates). The actual composition of these sublemas can vary: it can be simply a pair of candidates (for election to the posts of governor and vice-governor, for example), or an ordered list of candidates to fill the seats in a legislative body. Each party can present several sublemas to the main election. The winning party is the one which receives the most votes after the votes won by each of its sublemas have been added together. Within this party, the winning sublema is the one which, individually, won the most votes. Once the number of votes received by each lema and sublema has been determined, seats or posts are allocated to each proportionally. The Lemas system was designed in 1870 by the Belgian professor Charles Borelli. Lemas were introduced in Uruguay in the early 20th century when the "Lema law" introduced double simultaneous voting. It allowed for the election of the President, Chamber of Deputies and Senate by casting a single vote. Parties acted as lemas, while party factions formed sublemas. Voters would vote for a sublema of a party, with the totals of sublemas totalled to establish the winning party. During periods in which a presidential system was enacted (as opposed to the collegiado system that operated between 1918 and 1933 and 1951 and 1966), the presidential candidate of the sublema in the winning party with the most votes would become president. This system was abolished for presidential elections after constitutional reforms were passed in a 1996 referendum, restricting each party to a single presidential candidate. Department elections still use the old system. The parliamentary and department elections still use double simultaneous voting.